Tuesday, October 03, 2006

With apologies to pop wuss Justin Timberlake, he never had to bring sexy back. Sexy, if you look anywhere around you, never went away.

Today, Sun Media continues a three-part series looking at the 50 greatest sex symbols ever to hold the popular culture sway -- from movie stars and singers to athletes and models.

They are the individuals who, thanks to good genes and more than a little of that elusive ingredient we call charisma, really are too sexy for themselves -- and everyone else.

30. STING: You'd guess anyone born with the name Gordon Sumner would be destined for dorkdom. Sting, despite fronting the Police, his solo success and austere, intellectualized mystique, has turned out to be just that: a dork. Who just happens to be the thinking woman's lust toy.

29. BURT REYNOLDS: Back when hair adorned many a male lip, Reynolds lorded over all with such redneck-as-superhero movies as Smokey and the Bandit and Cannonball Run.

28. DAVID BECKHAM: Every sport needs an ambassador and soccer's cause is aided immensely by fashion plate Beckham. Hate him? Does it matter? As long as he and wife Victoria remain the sport's photogenic first family, the answer is no.

27. BETTIE PAGE: It's no surprise when Page was finally immortalized in a biopic, the movie would be entitled the Notorious Bettie Page. The pre-eminent 1940s pin-up girl of fetish photos and soft-core pornography, Page was reportedly photographed more times than even Marilyn Monroe.

26. GRACE KELLY: She was director Alfred Hitchcock's blond of choice in such classics as Rear Window before she wed Rainier III, prince of Monaco in 1956, elevating her from the status of mere Hollywood royalty to the real thing.

25. VANESSA PARADIS: A celebrity in her native France, this singer and actress is best known on this continent for being the woman who pirated away Johnny Depp.

24. DIANA RIGG: We love those catsuits, especially when they're filled out as well as when Rigg played secret agent Emma Peel in the 1960s British television series The Avengers.

23. ROCK HUDSON: A major movie star hiding his true sexual identity? Thank God that could never happen today. Before Hudson became the face of AIDS and closeted Hollywood, he was the square-jawed man's man who starred (opposite Doris Day) in a string of 1960s comedies, then in the TV series McMillan & Wife.

22. THE SPICE GIRLS: If you wanted crazy, there was Scary Spice. If you wanted trampy, there was Ginger. And if you wanted voluptuous, there was Baby. Then there was Posh, who you just wanted.

21. RICHARD GERE: Few probably thought Gere, when he was starring in American Gigolo and An Officer and a Gentleman, would ever age into a social activist.

20. GEORGE CLOONEY: Before there was McDreamy, there was Clooney. Does this mean Patrick Dempsey is fated to leave Grey's Anatomy and win Oscars and direct movies? Are you drunk?

19. BRITNEY SPEARS: It seems decades since Britney's shimmy and low-riders made her synonymous with sex. Even after her sales began to slip, the pop tart's puppet masters were crafty enough to make the masses wonder what she'd do next.

18. SEAN CONNERY: In the jungle, a lion gets old and is run out of the pride by a younger, more virile rival. Unless the older lion is named Connery, in which case he scoffs, beds the younger lion's woman and shoots the upstart between the eyes. Connery will forever be the one, true Bond.

17. CATHERINE DENEUVE: She was hailed as the world's most elegant woman after she signed on to pitch Chanel No. 5 in the 1970s. A respected actor before she became an icon, Deneuve remains both to this day.

16. OLIVIA NEWTON JOHN: Along with Jane Fonda, Newton John popularized the 1980s aerobics movement with the song Physical. For a generation of guys, when they think of her, Grease is the word.

15. ANNA KOURN-IKOVA: What? She plays tennis, too?

14. JOHN TRAVOLTA: As Vinnie Barbarino on Welcome Back, Kotter, Travolta was the Ashton Kutcher of his day. But while Kutcher has all but jettisoned hopes of a serious career thanks to trite rubbish like Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?, Travolta became an idol when he signed on to the popular film Saturday Night Fever. Two decades later, he would again epitomize cinematic cool in Quentin Tarantino's landmark crime opus, Pulp Fiction.

13. CINDY CRAWFORD: There had been models, even supermodels, before her, but the arrival of Crawford and her signature mole signalled the beginning of the era of Naomi, Heidi, Tyra and Elle.

12. JOHNNY DEPP: Depp is the bad boy girls, and women, swoon for. For years, Depp eschewed the superstardom that has come to him now with the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

11. PAMELA ANDERSON: The Canadian who rode the wave of Baywatch to stratospheric success. In reality, she's a social activist and savvy businessperson, richer than either you or I will ever be.